A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains or may contain material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the photocopy reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure in exactly the form it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
The present invention relates in general to a gaming device, and more particularly to a gaming device having a bonus round with multiple random generation and multiple return/risk scenarios.
Gaming machines currently exist with bonus rounds in which a player has one or more opportunities to choose masked bonus awards from a group of symbols arranged in a pattern and displayed to the player. When the player chooses a masked symbol from the pattern, the bonus round removes the mask and either displays a bonus value or a bonus round terminator which terminates the bonus round. The controller of the gaming machine randomly places a predetermined number of bonus round awards and bonus terminators in the pattern at the beginning of the bonus round and maintains the positioning until the bonus round terminates. The outcome depends upon whether the player selects an award or terminator.
European Patent Application No. EP 0 945 837 A2 which is assigned on its face to WMS Gaming, Inc. discloses a bonus round of this type. In this type of round, each time the player enters the bonus round, the player has the same diminishing chance to select an award instead of a terminator. For example, that application discloses a bonus round that has 30 possible selections, 24 bonus awards and 6 bonus round terminators. Each time the player enters the bonus round, the player has a 100% chance of having a first pick, an 80% chance of having a second pick, a 63% chance of having a third pick, a 50% chance of having a fourth pick and so on.
It should be appreciated that once a bonus round of the type described above begins, the game will not change or alter the values of the masked awards. Once the game displays the masked awards, the game sets the values and positions for each award and does not alter either during the round. Therefore, the implementor of the above type of bonus round has one opportunity to generate or distribute awards having relatively high and low values. For example, the application discloses a bonus round that has one 20 credit award, two 15 credit awards, two 10 credit awards, eight 5 credit awards, two 4 credit awards, three 3 credit awards, four 2 credit awards and two 1 credit awards. As the player advances through this type of bonus round, the probability of the player receiving an award having a particular value, e.g., an award having a high value, only increases slightly due to the lessening of remaining selections. Likewise, as discussed above, the probability of the player obtaining a bonus terminator increases by the lessening of remaining selections.
Because the above bonus scheme has only one opportunity to generate a set of values and because the probability of selecting a particular award or a bonus terminator only increases due to the lessening of remaining selections, bonus rounds of this type have no effective ability to alter their return/risk ratio so that players will receive higher bonuses as they advance farther and farther through the bonus round. For example, in the distribution stated above, the player has a 1 in 30 or 3.33% chance of selecting the 20 credit award in the player""s first selection, a 1 in 29 or 3.45% chance in the second selection, a 3.57% chance in the third selection and a 3.70% chance in the fourth selection. The player has roughly the same probability in each selection to choose the high value award.
Increasing the number of high value awards does not solve the problem. If the above example included five 20 credit awards instead of just one, the probability distribution would change to 16.7% (5 in 30), 17.2% (5 in 29), 17.9% (5 in 28) and 18.5% (5 in 27), respectively. It should be appreciated that decreasing the total number of selections has roughly the same effect as increasing the number of high value awards. Thus, in the above type of gaming device, the player has roughly the same chance of choosing a high value award in the first pick as in the second, roughly double the chance of choosing a high value award in the first two selections as in the third selection, roughly three times the chance of choosing a high value award in the first three selections as in the fourth selection and so on.
Likewise, the above type of gaming device has no effective way to increase risk from one selection to the next. There is a 6 in 30 or 20% chance of terminating the round on the first selection, a 20.7% chance of terminating on the second selection, a 21.4% of terminating on the third, a 22.2% of terminating on the fourth and so on. The above type of gaming device cannot effectively alter return, risk or return/risk.
It should be appreciated that varying award returns and risk of bonus round termination increases player excitement and enjoyment. Players enjoy playing for high bonus awards or high return rounds. Gaming devices preferably present a risk of termination that is commensurate with the likelihood or rewarding a high return, and players enjoy playing high risk, high return games. Players also enjoy playing a game that lasts an extended period of time and provides a plurality of awards. Thus, it is desirable to have a bonus round of a gaming device that provides initial selections that are relatively low return/low risk and later selections having increasingly higher returns and higher risk.
The present invention overcomes the limitations of known gaming device bonus rounds by providing a multi-level bonus round, wherein each level includes a plurality of random generation mechanisms or components, and wherein each level includes a different average award value and risk of termination. The gaming device additionally includes a display that is preferably interactive, and which enables the player to make a selection in each level that causes the game to produce a randomly generated award.
Upon a bonus round triggering event, the video monitor produces an initial display that prompts the player to select from a plurality of pick buttons shown on the display. In the embodiment discussed below, the bonus round contains two pick buttons, however, the present invention can provide any number.
The gaming device maintains a database for the bonus round that is separated, as is the bonus round, by a plurality of levels. The database and thus the bonus round can contain any number of levels. The levels of the database each contain a number of award sets, wherein the number of these sets is equal to or greater than the number of pick buttons on the display. The award sets enable the implementor of the gaming device to tailor or create a level having a high or low average payout and a high or low risk of bonus round termination. Since there are multiple levels, there can be different average awards and risks of termination.
The player""s choice of one of the pick buttons is the first random generation component to the eventual award of the current level in the bonus round. That is, the player""s award will come from the pick button that the player selects. The pick buttons not selected by the player will show awards that the player could have obtained and thus the player""s relative success or failure in the bonus round.
When the player picks or chooses one of the pick buttons, the game provides the second random generation component to the eventual award of the current level by assigning one of the award groups, mentioned above, to each pick button of the display. The game then provides a series of displays, wherein the game first flashes or highlights or otherwise displays each of the awards in the award sets in close enough proximity to the set""s assigned pick button that the player can easily recognize the assignments for the current level.
Next, the game randomly chooses one of the awards from each of the award sets and displays the chosen awards in the same proximity to their associated pick buttons. The selection of one of the awards provides the third and final random generation component to the player""s award for the level. The player""s award for any given level is thus the selected award of the selected award set of the picked or chosen pick button.
The word xe2x80x9cawardxe2x80x9d for purposes of this invention includes award multipliers that are multiplied by a number of base game credits, an outright award of base game credits or a bonus round terminator. That is, the award sets described above can include any of these. If the game awards multipliers or base game credits, the game updates the player""s credits, preferably in the bonus round display.
When the game selects a bonus round terminator, the bonus round ends. If no bonus round terminator is selected, the game proceeds to the next level of the bonus round and proceeds in the manner described immediately above until the game selects a bonus round terminator or the player exhausts the levels provided by the bonus round.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a gaming device with a bonus round wherein the game randomly generates awards or bonus values at multiple stages or times during the round.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a bonus round having varying award values and varying risk so that the player has multiple opportunities to play for awards as well as an opportunity to win a high value award.
Other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed disclosure, taken in conjunction with the accompanying sheets of drawings, wherein like numerals refer to like parts, elements, components, steps and processes.